Tag Archives: facts

We’re here today to shine a good light on yet another F subject that is often overlooked, disparaged, undervalued, and sometimes even stepped on* by accident. Yes: frogs are for the most part what one might consider gross. No doubt their wild, unpredictable hopping can be unsettling. And yes, some are so butt ugly they may make you want to vomit. They have the dubious distinction of being on the short list of animals that have been used as Plagues.

But you know what? Frogs are also pretty awesome. A vastly underrated species if you ask me.

Let’s celebrate our amphibian friends by pointing out some of their more flattering features.

FANCY FROGS

Holy cow have you seen some of these poison dart frogs? These crazy-colorful beauties that mostly live in Central and South America got their name from the heyday of when people were using the frogs’ poison in their blowdarts** to settle various scores.

Have a look at some of these punams! But don’t touch, lest you end up looking like Martin Short in whatever terrible 80s movie that was with Danny Glover when he gets stung by all those bees.

Cobalt Dart Frog

The Green & Black Poison Dart Frog, highly dangerous due to its striking resemblance to a delicious Andes Mint.

As a proud Floridian, I stand by one of our most iconic symbols: the flamingo. This noble creature has served as a spokesman for some of our finest institutions, such as Miami Subs and the Florida Lottery, shown tremendous grace over being turned into a lawn ornament, and brought a certain amount of class to a place where we used to just scream at horses to run faster.

Despite consistently having the smelliest quadrant at our local zoo (don’t even try to blame those swans you share the pond with), we stand with you, flamingos – albeit far away and not downwind. If it wasn’t for the Fennec Fox, you’d definitely be our official animal. Actually that’d probably make more sense as we’re not a Moroccan blog.

The majestic flamingo taking flight. We’re all rooting for you this week!

In all seriousness, this is a big week for flamingos. The BBC ran a great story detailing a gigantic flamingo love fest that is supposed to start happening this week in Tanzania. So everyone keep it down and keep your fingers crossed for lots of successful breeding of lesser flamingos. Unfortunately these critters are close to being endangered.

!BONUS FLAMINGO FACTS!

1. Scientists appear to have named the different kinds of flamingos based on their awesome-ness, you’ve got: lesser flamingos, greater flamingos, and then of course, AMERICAN FLAMINGOS.

2. Apparently the Romans of old used to enjoy eating flamingo tongue.

3. Flamingos can live up to 40 years!

4. They get their pink color from the things they eat, such as Big League Chew**, and other flamingos**.